in red t-shirts, red caps, red model of cars. St Catherine steet was at its best with Montreal fashion festival from 4-8th of June with each of it cross roads staging fashion shows (big brands like Guess, Milano etc), rock bands (best ones), pubs (ofcourse its "sin city") , restaurants (on street) and endless Ferrari cars to click your pics with for all the Ferrari freaks like me :).First 2 days i was alone to visit the fashion shows, rock shows and Ferraries, but that did not stop me from going.
The city was literally rocking and i couldn't have asked for more. I enjoyed the programs, clicked lots of pics (with new Nikon D60 brought for Amitava :D) and touched Ferraries too (it was my dream come true :-)). I was just waiting to see the real Ferrari racing car on Sunday. I had booked 3 tickets for Canadian GP and was looking forward to Sharath and Gaurav to join me on Saturday from Ottawa.It was Saturday morning 9:30 when Sharath and Gaurav reached my apartment.We had our breakfast (Sharath was big fan of my cooking by then :P) and planned our trip for next 2 days. We covered quite a lot of places like Concoria university, St Catherine street, Place Ville Marie (shopping center), Eaton Center (shopping center), Christ Chruch Cathedral, FutureShop(electronics shop), Place des Arts where the cultural concerts take place.
From there we took a metro to reach Viau station where we visited .Biodome that has artificial ecosystem ranging from artic to tropical forests and then went to Olympic stadium where the cable car ride and view from top of the stadium was breathtaking. We could see the whole of Montreal from there. We then took another metro from Viau to MontRoyal and started walking to the Park MontRoyal only to be disappointed to see it as just another park. We then headed to Imax at Montreal science center to see 3D movie but was disappointed again to know that all the shows for that day was in French(nothing new in this city). We then reached home and got fresh before heading to the rockshow and to click few once-in-life time pics ;). This time we were a group of 3, so it was more fun and we took a lot of pics and videos. We ended it in a great way, but am sure Sharth is still cursing me for it :P.Sunday, the race day.
We couldnot hide our excitment as we got ready and headed towards Jean Drapeau in metro to find an ocean of Formula1 fans from all parts of the world with crazy attires and even foldable chairs, food, sun screens and kangaroo tv (to watch live relay of F1 on tv with stats and replays). We grabbed our place and waited for Kimi, Massa, Hamilton, Kubica, DC to show their skills. In the meantime, there was a "challenge ferrari challege" race for Nascar kind of closed cars and then some flight acrobatics before all the Formula1 drivers were brought in vintage cars for a parade. I never thought i would ever see those great men with best job in this world from such a close distance. It was time for some action and we were all eagerly waiting to see how Hamilton (on pole position), Kubica (on second) and Kimi(on third) would perform, when the red lights went off and cars started to rip on the track, burning the rubber at 300kmph with a loud engine noise. Hamilton continued to keep the lead with others following in same order for the first few laps. First time we got a glance of McLaren, Ferrari and other race cars in real when they entered our part of the circuit. We tried clicking the pics, but the cars were simply too fast to be captured. Sharath took few videos of the race and i was trying my photography skills with digital SLR for 13-15 laps with 20-30 random shots and yes i could capture some of those cars on the pic :).
Ferrari looked strong initially, with Raikkonen setting the fastest lap on soft tyres as he hounded Kubica early on. Then came the incident when Hamilton ran into the back of him while he was stationary at the red light at the exit to the pits. The impact removed his rear wing, and that was that. Compounding Ferrari’s frustration, Massa’s refuelling rig suffered a broken joint in the fuel line that same lap, necessitating a further stop next time around which threw him to the back of the field. His climb back to fifth was one of the race’s highlights, in particular his double pass on Barrichello and Kovalainen at the hairpin. It was a sad day for Force India as Sutil triggered the fateful safety car intervention when he lost second and third gears. Fisichella’s race was compromised when his engine stalled during his pit stop, and ended after 51 laps after he had clobbered a wall. In the end it was a BMW day, with Kubica and heidfeld grabbing the 1st and 2nd position and good old DC (David Coulthard) coming 3rd in his Redbull.
It was a little disappointing as Ferrari fan not to hear the victorious Italian anthem at the end, but it was never the same when we walked on the track taking pictures and then seeing the drivers and the cars in the pit stop. The party was on at the BMW and Redbull pits and we clicked a lot of pics there near the pits and track start grid before we went to Montreal Casino where i only lost few dollars while trying my hand at quick money making way. We headed back home and after a small pit stop(hehe..am now fully into F1 language), Sharath and Gaurav left for Ottawa.
